3 The Concept of The Self and The Self Representation

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

David Milrod M.D.
Published online: 09 Jan 2014.
To cite this article: David Milrod M.D. (2002) The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation, Neuropsychoanalysis:
An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 4:1, 7-23, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2002.10773372
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David Milrod, M.D.
As a psychoanalyst with a strong interest in

developmental, structural, dynamic, and economic
(drive) theory,1 I have been fascinated to learn
that a number of leading neuroscientists have
independently come to a position where a concept
of ``the self'' is absolutely necessary to make their
theoretical constructs coherent and understandable. Coming at a time when some psychoanalysts
(e.g., Van Spruiell, 1981) have given up on the
usefulness of the term, makes it all the more
striking that a number of neuroscientists nd the
concept of ``the self'' indispensable. Neuroscientists do not use the term ``self'' in the same way
psychoanalysts do. For that matter, the term does
not have the same meaning in the hands of each
neuroscientist, nor in the hands of each psychoanalyst. Nonetheless, here might be an area where
analysts and neuroscientists could begin to build a
fragile bridge of understanding between their two
dierent elds. It is with that purpose in mind
that I undertook this paper, in which I hope to
outline what many psychoanalysts mean when
they use the term ``self'', hoping that it might
catch the interest of neuroscientists just as their
work did for me, and that this might lead to a
richer dialogue.
What follows will not deal with neuroanatomy, neurons, neuronal circuits, brain structure and development, or the biochemistry of
neurotransmitters and neuroreceptors. I shall
focus on events and situations that exist only on
a psychological plane. The term ``structure,''
shared by both elds, will not refer to a tangible
entity that can be seen or demonstrated under a
microscope or in a research laboratory. Here
``structure'' will refer to a set of psychic2 events
that have attained the quality of constancy,
1
In psychoanalysis, economic theory deals with the deployment of psychological energy within the mental apparatus. It is
signicant in such phenomena as excitation, dicharge, considerations of ``quantity'', and force.
2
``Psychic'' as used in psychoanalysis and in this paper, is
synonymous with ``mental'' and is totally unrelated to things
mystical or paranormal.
regularity, and predictability. Thus the ``superego'',3 or what we refer to as conscience in

everyday terms, is a psychic structure. It has no
tangible substance and we cannot isolate it in a
specic part of the brain, yet we all know, and
poets and philosophers have described for centuries, its profound inuence on a person's life.
I will explore the development of the self
representation, and in addition, the object representation, its more fully studied counterpart,
because it follows a parallel line of development
and will shed some light on the self representation. The most important way in which the self
representation can be transformed and thus
become more structured, is by a process called
identication. I will therefore explore identication processes at some length. Since neuroscientists have referred in passing to the concept of
`ìdentity'', and since it is intimately connected
with the self representation, that too will be
explored. I will adopt a developmental approach,
taking the reader along a path of increasing
complexity. Finally, for the benet of the psychoanalytic reader, I will add a synopsis of some of
the ideas of two neuroscientists (Jaak Panksepp
and Antonio Damasio), with whose work I am
familiar, and whose thoughts about the ``self''
stimulated my interest in writing this paper.
Development of the Self and Object
Representations
There has been more confusion about the meaning
3
Freud's rst theory of the mind, the topographic theory,
rested heavily on degrees of consciousness. Thus there was the Cs.,
the Ucs., and the Pcs. parts of the mind. The topographic theory
gave way to the later structural theory which divided the mind into
3 hypothetical systems or structures, each with its own areas of
functioning. The id was the source of drive energy, the ego was the
executive part of the mind mediating between all pressures brought
to bear on it, and the superego was the bearer of moral and ethical
standards guiding the individual's behavior. Thus the superego is
one of the 3 basic structures of the mind, and its actions are
regular, constant, and predictable.
8
of the terms ``the ego,'' ``the self,'' and ``the self
representation,'' than about most psychoanalytic
terms. Scanning the literature can easily lead one
to wonder whether ``the self'' refers to the
individual or person, his ego as a psychic structure,
to both of these equally, to a psychic representation of the individual, to a superordinate fourth
psychic structure alongside the id, ego, and superego, or to a fantasy. This state of aairs has led
some psychoanalysts to advocate the abolition of
the term. These psychoanalysts believe it has
detracted from Freud's elegant theory in which
``the ego'' had the `àdvantage'' of referring both
to the person or experiential self, as well as to the
abstract psychic structure. For a sampling of the
confusion see Panel Report: Psychoanalytic
Theories of the Self (Richards, 1982).
Freud himself contributed to the diculty in
terminology by using the term `ègo'' in several
dierent ways. In the early years of psychoanalysis, terms were loosely applied until a
sucient body of clinical and theoretical experience had accumulated, bringing with it the
possibility of greater specicity. Although Freud
was entitled to use his terms more loosely as he
sorted out his ideas, I believe we no longer should
today, but should strive for greater specicity
wherever possible. In Freud's hands ``the ego''
could refer to the individual, to his character, to
the executive part of the psychic apparatus, or at
times to the psychic representation of the
individual. Hartmann (1956) gave a good summary of the various meanings the term `ègo''
took on in Freud's early work. Today we try to
dierentiate those separate meanings from each
other and assign to each a dierent, clear, and
specic term. Hence, unlike those who think the
term ``self'' should be dropped from psychoanalytic terminology, I believe that its proper and
careful use has great potential for clarifying many
aspects of our theory, as well as illuminating our
clinical understanding and technique.
In studying the self we should begin with the
point that ``the self'' is not the same as ``the self
representation,'' any more than ``the object'' is
the same as ``the object representation.'' The term
`òbject'' refers to a tangible external person (we
here assume a human object) including all of his
or her individual characteristics, physical, psychological, emotional, along with their past
history, and their ambitions and aspirations as
far as they are known to the subject. ``The object
representation'' (or more fully, ``the psychic
representation of the object'') is a representation
or image (not limited to visual impressions) of
that external object which an individual forms
and carries in his mind. It is not the real external
David Milrod
object but it does have a close relationship to that
person. All of the qualities, more or less objective,
that come from experiences, memories, perceptions, hopes, wishes, fantasies, fears, and more,
about the real object that have been meaningful
to the subject observer, form part of the mental
image the individual has of that object. In other
words, all of these components form part of the
content of the object representation of that
specic object. In time, the object representation
becomes integrated into a stable, more or less
constantly present (i.e., constantly cathected4)
substructure within the ego, and thus becomes
part of the psychic apparatus, separate and
distinct from the real object. This is in keeping
with an important principle Grossman (1992)
emphasized, namely that a representation of any
entity exists in a totally dierent realm from that
in which the entity itself resides. In this case the
object resides in the external world (from the
point of view of the subject), while the object
representation is a substructure in the subject's
ego and so is part of his psychic apparatus. There
are always dierences between the object and its
representation, depending on the nature of the
emotional involvement the individual has with
that object, as well as the emotional and
characterological makeup of the individual. There
is no such thing as an object representation that is
entirely objective and true to the real external
object. It will always be inuenced by emotional
and psychological factors such as dependency,
love, admiration, envy, jealousy, anger, guilt, etc.
In a parallel way an individual is himself or
herself a tangible esh and blood person who
exists in the real world very much like any
`òbject'' does. ``The self'' refers to that tangible,
substantive individual, including all of his or her
characteristics, physical, emotional, psychological,
and past history. Synonymous terms we might use
are ``the real self'' or, better, ``the psychophysiological self.'' Most importantly, a psychic
representation develops of the self just as it does
for the real object. The formal term by which we
know it is ``the psychic representation of the self,''
or as it is more usually referred to, ``the self
representation.'' It is a representation or an image
(again, not limited to visual impressions) in the
individual's own mind of ``the self''.
4
Cathexis is a psychoanalytic term closely related to the
theory of drive energy, a metaphorical quantitative conception
unrelated to measureable physical force, but referring to the
intensity of mental activity. It refers to the investment of drive
energy (libidinal or aggressive) onto a specic psychic entity,
interest, or activity. Drive energy may be cathected (in the above
example the object representation would be cathected), or
decathected (withdrawn from), or displaced (shifted from one
entity onto another), by the activity of the ego.

Some aspects of the self representation are
fully conscious, some are unconscious or repressed, and some can be called to consciousness,
i.e., are preconscious. The same is true of the
object representation. Jacobson (1964) dened the
self representation as the `ùnconscious, preconscious, and conscious endopsychic representation
of the body and mental self (i.e., the psychophysiological self) in the system ego''. In addition,
because we can never be as objective about
ourselves as about others, we regularly nd that
the discrepancies between the self and the self
representation are greater than those between the
object and the object representation. In general,
leaving aside people who seek pain for emotional
reasons, we tend to enlarge our virtues and
minimize our shortcomings, unlike our general
tendency toward others. Like the object representation, the self representation in time becomes a
substructure within the ego, attaining stable
constancy. It is because of their stability and
constancy that they are dened as structures, and
since they are each part of the ego, the executive
structure of Freud's tripartite structural theory,
we refer to them as substructures within the ego.
One might ask why these careful distinctions
are important. They help to distinguish the self,
the self representation, and the ego, from one
another, and that alone greatly helps in clearing
up confusion that has surrounded these terms for
years. For example, a description of secondary
narcissism5 today would involve the withdrawal
of a quantum of libidinal drive energy from the
object representation and its investment in (the
cathexis of) the self representation. But prior to
1950, because there was no concept of the self or
self representation, it had to be described as a
withdrawal of libido from the object and its
investment in the ego. It left an unasked question
looming: what exactly does `ègo'' mean here, the
real individual, one of the structures of the
tripartite psychic apparatus, or some vague
concept parallel to the object? At the same time
it was important to keep in mind concepts such as
the cathexis of the ego as a structure, and the
drive energy available to the ego for its use in the
service of ego functions such as defense, and the
ego's use or distribution of drive energy (cathexis
and decathexis) in states such as grandiosity,
idealization, depersonalization, moods, etc. Thus
it became very dicult to arrive at a clear
5
Narcissism, commonly thought of as self love, is in
theoretical terms, the libidinal investment (i.e., cathexis) of the self
representation. Secondary narcissism refers to that form of self love
resulting from the dccathexis of libidinal drive energy from the
object representation, followed by its investment in the self
representation.
understanding of secondary narcissism without

the concept of the self representation. In similar
ways much more clarity is brought to the understanding of depersonalization phenomena, depressive states, the `às if'' character, and world and
self destructive fantasies, when an understanding
of the self and its representation is part of the
dynamic formulation. For these reasons I believe
that this concept goes a long way in clarifying old
areas of confusion in psychoanalytic theory.
It also helps clarify aspects of economic or
drive theory. The concept of drive cathexis refers
to investing drive energy, libidinal or aggressive,
in specic entities. But these entities are limited to
psychic contents and representations. Put another
way, drive cathexes and decathexes take place
only within the psychic apparatus. We do not and
cannot cathect external tangible objects; what we
cathect is their psychic representations. This is so
whether the investment or withdrawal of cathexis
is focussed on representations of objects, the self,
ego interests, ego activities or functions, or
superego contents or functions. Thus we do not
cathect a real external love object, but its psychic
representation. In the same way we do not cathect
or decathect the self, but the self representation.
When we speak of shifts of libido or aggression
from the object to the self or vice versa, we are
using these terms loosely and are instead referring
to shifts between their representations. Yet an
increase or decrease in the cathexis of these
entities aects the individual's behavior, attitudes,
feelings, expectations, etc., in relation to the real
tangible object or entity. Cathectic shifts of this
kind always profoundly aect the individual's
behavior in the real world.
We can trace the importance of the object in
Freud's early work back to the Studies on
Hysteria (1895) where important love objects
play prominent roles in each of his case reports.
Freud paid little attention to the importance of
the object in those early years, perhaps because he
was occupied with building a coherent libido
theory and a theory of the psychic apparatus, to
be called the topographic theory. Nevertheless the
importance of the object remained implicit in all
of his case reports, in the Three Essays on the
Theory of Sexuality (1905), in On Narcissism
(1914), and nally in Mourning and Melancholia
(1917), where it assumed its appropriate prominence. It retained its place in analytic theory after
the formulation of the structural theory (1923),
perhaps even assuming increased importance.
The history of the concept of the self is much
briefer. As Hartmann (1956) pointed out, the self
was one of the implied meanings in Freud's use of
the term ego. From time to time Freud also used
10
terms like ``self regard'' (1914), but did not
distinguish between the ego and the self. As
described above, he regularly used the term `ègo''
in describing secondary narcissism. This state of
aairs did not change until 1950, when Hartmann
and Jacobson introduced the self and the self
representation into our theoretical framework.
Hartmann (1950) pointed to the confusion in
meaning of the term narcissism, which until then
had been used to refer to either the cathexis of the
self or of the ego (pp. 8485): ``However the
opposite of object cathexis is not ego cathexis, but
the cathexis of one's own person, that is self
cathexis''. He concluded that it would be
clarifying to dene narcissism as the libidinal
cathexis of the self, and then added, ``(It) might be
useful to apply the term self representation as
opposed to object representation.'' In these
comments Hartmann discriminates between the
ego and the self as well as between the self and the
self representation.
Psychic representations develop gradually.
The newborn presumably has no concept of inner
and outer, self and non-self, and no representations of the object world or the self. Psychic
structures (ego, id, and superego) do not yet exist,
and the drives are not yet dierentiated from one
another. Hartmann referred to this as the
undierentiated stage of development when one
may say that all is sensory experience, or as Spitz
put it, all is coenesthetic receptivity. But changes
soon appear, and they can begin to show up
within hours of birth. For example, one can
sometimes observe newborns in the delivery
room, after respiration is established and they
are made comfortable, looking into the overhead
delivery room lights and calmly closing and
opening their eyes repetitively, apparently exploring a newfound ability to turn the lights on and
o. We might be seeing here the rst elements of
what could evolve into an ego function, the
control of sensory stimulae, and the rst elements
of an awareness of something belonging to the
outside. Hartmann suggested that it was an early
forerunner of the ego function of defense. All of
this may begin within a half hour after birth.
Changes like this multiply inexorably over
time as the ego develops. The early concern for
comfort and the avoidance of distress is primary,
and is at rst focussed on the earliest primordial
dangerhunger. To avoid hunger and to be
nurtured, and satiated is of greatest importance to
the infant. It appears that in infantile terms,
hunger is experienced as an emergency situation
of life threatening proportion. A satisfying feeding completely calms the distress, whereupon the
baby falls asleep, often at the breast in the
David Milrod
mother's arms. The cycle of hunger and satiation
will be repeated countless times throughout
childhood. It is possible to postulate that the
newborn's subjective experience is that his cry of
distress magically produces the milk and the
comforting feeding. The wish may well be
experienced as magically powerful because there
is as yet no sense of an external object mediating
the rescue from the crisis. But soon islands of
developing ego functions begin to appear, based
on early perceptions and the laying down of
memories. Growing perceptual ability makes the
child increasingly aware of the feeding experience
(swallowing), the milk, and the breast. The
perceptions are not limited to the visual sphere.
The growing store of memories and a primitive
sense of cause and eect gradually enable the
child to anticipate that certain familiar activities
taking place around him will soon lead to a
feeding. The emergency nature of hunger is thus
gradually mitigated and becomes less of a crisis.
On a theoretical level, growing perceptual ability,
an increasing store of available memories, the
beginning of anticipation, and the taming of
intense aect, are all elements of developing ego
functions progressing as the child matures.
Along with this developmental and maturational move, the child eventually develops an
increasing awareness that something outside is
connected with his being made comfortable, and
that he or she does not entirely control this
outside entity. It marks the beginning of an
awareness that there is something outside of the
self, and initiates a process that in time will clearly
dierentiate between self and non-self, inner and
outer, self and object. In the beginning, these
distinctions are blurred, hazy, and transient. They
appear when the child is in distress, and disappear
with the easing of that distress. Once the child has
some awareness of a caretaking object, he will
awaken hungry, in distress, and become keenly
aware of the comforting ministrations coming
from the outside in the person of the mother.
Once fed, satiated, and asleep, he will lose those
distinctions between inner and outer, self and
object. This cycle goes on indenitely: greater
dierentiation with distress, and fading dierentiation (de-dierentiation) with relief from distress. (As will be seen below, there are elements in
Damasio's description of the core self, such as its
transient nature, as well as the need to recreate it
for each object, that echo some of the characteristics described above.)
In our theoretical model these changes are
mirrored by intrapsychic changes. As the child
begins to dierentiate self from non-self, islands
of early representations of the object and of the

self form simultaneously in the ego. (There cannot
be an awareness of something outside of the self
without a simultaneous awareness of the self, in
whatever primitive form that takes. The simultaneous onset of awareness of the object and of the
self, and their parallel ontological development,
demonstrate how inextricably linked to one
another these two entities are. These considerations echo Damasio's comment that the essence of
core consciousness is knowing of your own
existence and of the existence of others. It also
touches on the signicance both Panksepp and
Damasio place on the function of self observation.) These primordial islands are the earliest
forms of the self representation and the object
representation. Jacobson (1953) says that the self
representation arises from our inner experiences
and our awareness of them, as well as our ability
to perceive our body and mental self as an object.
To her, the nuclei of our self images are our
perceptions of the rst body images and sensations. In her description Jacobson places great
importance on the selfobserving function of the
ego. Heightened distinctions between the self and
object representations (dierentiation) is brought
on by pain and distress (e.g., hunger). When the
distress resolves the distinctions between them
disappear and one can say that they merge or fuse
with one another. As time goes on and with
further development of the ego functions of
perception, memory, anticipation, and a beginning sense of reality, more characteristics of the
object are added to the object representation.
Similarly, more characteristics of the self are
added to the self representation. In this way both
representations grow, become structured, integrated, and in time become coherent, stable
representations within the ego. Despite their
structure and stability they always retain a
tendency to sharpen their distinctions with experiences of distress, and to blur them with experiences of gratication. It remains a truism
throughout life that pain, distress, and experiences
connected with aggression are linked with separation and dierentiation processes, whereas gratication and experiences endowed predominantly
with libidinal drive energy are linked to combining, integrating, fusing, or merging phenomena.
Borrowing a term from Anna Freud (1965),
we could say that the object goes through a
complex ``line of development''. At birth there is
no object. In the words of Anna Freud (1946),
``The newborn infant is self-centered and selfsucient as a being when it is not in a state of
tension. When it is under the pressure of urgent
bodily needs, as for instance hunger, it periodically
establishes connections with the environment,
11
which are withdrawn again after the needs have

been satised and the tension relieved. These
occasions are the child's rst introduction to
experiences of wish-fulllment and pleasure. They
establish centers of interest to which libidinal
energy becomes attached. An infant who feeds
successfully ``loves'' the experience of feeding''.
We might say therefore that the earliest object is
the experience of feeding. She goes on to say that
with further maturation milk (food) becomes the
object. Then it is the breast that becomes the
focus of love, i.e., the object. We refer to these
early objects as ``part objects'' because they do
not yet take in the whole external person.
An important characteristic of part objects is
their interchangeability. At this early stage of
development it matters very little to the child to
whom the breast is attached, so long as it is full of
milk and is gratifying. When the development of
the object progresses from part objects to whole
objects, i.e., as more and more elements of the
real object become part of its psychic representation, this characteristic changes. The mental
representation of the primary caretaker will then
include the mother as a whole person; no longer
will the child easily accept substitutes. (Elements
making up the facial features are especially
important in this developmental step). It now
matters a great deal to whom the breast is
attached and nobody but the primary love object
is so readily accepted as the nurturer. This takes
place at about eight months of age, a time Spitz
labeled the stage of stranger anxiety. The ability
to distinguish one object from another is the most
important achievement of this stage of development. Because there are pleasures to be regained
in experiences of self/object remerging, it will take
more time and further development before the
child can clearly distinguish the self from the
object. An interesting clinical aspect of the time
lag between these two developmental milestones
is that it can explain why childhood phobias are
among the earliest symptom formations, and
conversion symptoms appear later. Phobias depend heavily on the defense of displacement (one
object to another object), while identication
plays a large role in conversions (object to self
representation). (For a dierent view see Stern,
D., 1995).
Up to this point the cycle of self and object
dierentiation with the experience of distress, and
de-dierentiation with the experience of gratication, continues. In energic terms each representation is cathected when the child is hungry, a
cathexis which is given up (decathected) when the
need is satised. The object representation is
therefore inconstant, its presence or absence
12
dependent on the child's state of need. This
characteristic is captured by another term we use
for this stage of development of the object
representation, namely the ``need satisfying object''.
It refers to the fact that the child's object
representation appears when the child experiences
an urgent need, and disappears when that need is
satised. The term overlaps the stages of part and
whole objects.
The nal step in the development of object
representation is reached with the stage of `òbject
constancy.'' As the term suggests, at this stage the
object representation becomes a continually
present substructure within the ego, constantly
cathected regardless of the state of need. (Damasio
describes the core self becoming more lasting to
the point of approaching a sense of identity.) This
is so whether the real object is present or absent,
and whether the individual is in a state of need or
satisfaction. But object constancy implies yet
another characteristic. Long experience with the
reconstruction of early memories from the analyses of adult patients, fortied by data gathered in
child observation studies, have led psychoanalysts
to hypothesize that the newborn ascribes comforting and satisfying experiences to a good
object, and painful and frustrating experiences
to a separate bad object. Psychoanalysts often
refer to this phenomenon as the ``splitting of the
object'' into a good and a bad object, a concept I
would suggest is not quite accurate. The early
existence of separate good and bad objects is not
due to an activity of the ego, namely splitting; it is
merely the natural state of things for the human
infant at that early stage of development. As the
ego develops and matures there is a gradual
integration of the good and bad objects into a
single object that is sometimes good and sometimes bad. The earlier stage was not due to an act
of splitting, but due to an immature ego not yet
able to integrate good and bad images into one.
Before we can say that the child has reached
object constancy, this nal integrative step must
have taken place. We can speak of splitting of the
object in a meaningful way only after object
constancy has been reached. Then it occurs as a
result of ego activity in the service of defense and
represents a regression in the status of the object
representation. Delays in forming a constant
object would not be the result of splitting, but
rather the result of an ego failure in integration.
Nevertheless, once the milestone of object constancy has been reached, the object representation
becomes a stable substructure within the ego,
constantly cathected, and not so vulnerable to
shifts of libidinal or aggressive drive cathexis.
The development of the self representation
David Milrod
resembles that of the object representation. Both
arise simultaneously as islands of awareness that
appear with distress and vanish with satisfaction.
Anything which makes the infant aware of the
outer world or non-self, makes him simultaneously
aware of aspects of the self. Just as maturing ego
functions lead to an increasing awareness of the
object and increasing structuralization of its
representation, so they simultaneously lead to
an increasing awareness of qualities belonging to
the self and add to the contents and complexity of
its psychic representation. But the demarcating
stages in the line of development of the object
representation, such as part objects and need
satisfying objects, do not apply to the development
of the self representation. Object interchangeability also has no parallel in the development of
the self representation. We can only say that over
time the self representation shows increasing
stability, structure, and complexity, very much
like the developing object representation. Simultaneous with the attainment of object constancy
the self representation reaches self constancy,
becoming a constantly present substructure within
the ego, constantly cathected regardless of need,
stable, and clearly delineated from the object
representation.
During the long period of development
toward self and object constancy the contents of
each are frequently confused, so that what
pertains to the object and what to the self
representations is not always clear. We speculate
that experiences of having painful tensions
relieved by simply uttering a cry feeds the
newborn's sense of magical power and omnipotence. The child may feel that he commands
and orders the world around him, for which
reason we speak of the child as grandiose and
omnipotent. What a neutral observer would
ascribe to a caring adult, the infant experiences
as his own doing. It illustrates the extensive
confusion between the contents of the self and
object representations. Theoretically we speak of
the representations of object and self as having
blurred or porous boundaries at this early stage,
to indicate how easily the contents of one can ow
into the other.
As the ego develops, and the self and object
representations become more structured, the
boundaries of each become more solid and the
ow of contents from one to the other is gradually
moderated. In theoretical terms, projection and
introjection mechanisms are rampant in the early
stages of self and object dierentiation, becoming
less prominent with ego maturation. We should
note that these early projections and introjections
are not yet defense mechanisms, but simply a

characteristic of the primitive ego, universally
present. They are not the result of ego activity.
Projection and introjection become defense mechanisms only when the ego has developed to the
point where it can actively instigate these mechanisms to ward o perceived danger. In any case,
with the advent of object constancy, the distinctions between the representations of self and
object become stable, and the rampant nature of
projection and introjection mechanisms comes to
an end, only to appear on occasions when the ego
instigates the mechanisms for defensive purposes.
Object constancy usually occurs in the third
year of life. The constant cathexis of self and
object representations helps prevent easy dedierentiation and increases stability both in
relationships with love objects, and in a more
stable sense of self. By this time an enormous
amount of ego maturation has occurred. The
child is freely mobile and can explore his world, a
more stable reality sense helps establish a greater
sense of separateness, but now it is accompanied
by a growing sense of his own small size,
weakness, and vulnerability. His feeling of
grandiosity and magical power gives way to a
more realistic sense of the world with a greater
appreciation of cause and eect. The symbolic
function, the use of language and symbolic play is
established, and he has a wide array of defense
mechanisms available for the ego's use. Signal
anxiety and its use by the ego has also been
established by then. Earlier the child experienced
only traumatic anxiety, with its accompanying
sense of being overwhelmed by forces beyond his
ability to master. The child's only protections
against traumatic anxiety are the protective shield
against stimuli he was born with and which Freud
described, and most importantly, the mother's
function as a protective shield against traumata
(Kahn, 1963). Traumatic anxiety occurs without
any ego activity. The ego is its passive recipient.
By contrast, signal anxiety occurs only when the
ego has matured enough to understand and
anticipate an approaching danger, and then
actively give a signal of anxiety which amounts
to a small sample of traumatic anxieties experienced earlier, just enough to trigger defenses to
protect against or to ward o the approaching
danger. It requires a considerable store of
available memories of past danger situations, a
considerable understanding of the workings of the
world, some degree of knowledge of cause and
eect, the ability to anticipate what may unfold,
and a new ability to activate the anxiety signal.
The result is that the child becomes more self
reliant in maintaining his or her own sense of
security.
13
Dynamic Interaction Between Self and Object

RepresentationsIdentification
We have been dealing with the development of
these substructures within the ego up to this
point. We will now explore the dynamic activity
that takes place between them. With the earliest
beginnings of dierentiation the ego confronts a
new and strange situation as something belonging
to the non-self, the object world, begins to loom
into the child's perception. The ego's response
takes two separate directions, regressive and
progressive. The regressive striving presses for a
return to the known and familiar, the comfortable
existence prior to the recognition of distinctions
between self and non-self. At the same time the
progressive reaction of the ego makes an eort to
adapt to the new state of aairs with the existence
of a non-self world. The regressive trend leads to
a line of development of a process we know as
identication; the progressive trend, leads toward
nding a way to deal with the new state of aairs,
which leads to a line of development of object
relations. These two trends begin simultaneously
and the stimulus that triggers the onset of each is
the beginning of dierentiation. Students of
Freud will recognize that this represents an
amendment of his position. Freud wrote on
several occasions that identication was the
earliest form of object relationship, preceding
the more familiar anaclitic or narcissistic forms
(1917). The contributions of Hartmann, Kris,
Loewenstein and Jacobson, provide a much more
minute understanding of the ego, its functions
and substructures, and we conform more closely
to what is understood today in developmental ego
psychology in stating that identication is not an
object relationship. In fact, both identication
processes and object relationships begin simultaneously and are triggered by the same stimulus. It
is important to keep in mind that Freud did not
have at his disposal the concept of the self or
object representations and he struggled with more
restricted conceptualizations.
Identication is a complex ego process, the
end result of which is the shift of some
characteristics belonging to the object representation, over to the self representation. With it the
child experiences a change in the sense of self to a
greater or lesser degree, a change that may be
transitory or lasting. Hartmann and Loewenstein
(1962) said that the concept of identication is
complicated by the fact that``we use the term
both for the process and for the result'' (p. 49). I
believe that the term is further complicated by the
fact that the process of identication follows a
developmental line from primitive to mature
14
forms, and the term may refer to the line of
development itself or to any of the forms of
identication along the way.
Jacobson (1964) has contributed signicantly
to our understanding of this developmental
process. She describes four stages in this development: the undierentiated stage in which there
is no real identication process; the stage of
merged early images of self and object; the stage
of imitation; and the stage of select mature
identication. Because the self and object images
have not yet begun to separate to any degree in
the undierentiated stage (a stage also referred to
as primary narcissism), there is no true identication and no wish to become like someone else.
Freud referred to this stage in the terms of the
time (1914), when he said the child at rst takes
himself as his own ideal. This is a period
characterized by fantasies and feelings of omnipotence and grandiosity, so that understandably,
there is no striving for something beyond.
With some development beyond the undifferentiated phase, we have seen how self and
object dierentiation increases with distress and
how gratication leads to the remerging of self
and object images. The sense of perfection is
associated with the merged self-object state. At
this point the child does not have to wish to be the
mother because he or she becomes the mother in
the experience of merging. With further ego
maturation, and more structured self and object
representations, the automatic remerging with
gratication no longer occurs. It will require a
degree of regression to create the state of
remerging of self and object representations so
that the child can magically become one with the
adult and share in their power and perfection. In
these early forms of merging identications,
distinctions between self and object images are
lost.
With further development, as the self and
object images begin the slow process of becoming
more distinct from one another, the child's reality
sense will eventually impose on him the awareness
of being small, weak, and ineectual. The primary
love object begins to represent all that is powerful,
perfect, and aggrandized. When this realization
arrives at a critical point, an important developmental step is reached where perfection becomes
connected with someone outside of the self. It sets
in motion a lifelong striving to regain that lost
gratifying state of perfection and grandiosity by
becoming like the possessor of ``perfection''
outside the self. At this point self-object merging
is no longer so readily available to the ego as
regression is not so easily resorted to. The child's
ego maturation and more highly developed reality
David Milrod
sense no longer accept the image of a merged selfobject as the basis for a feeling of grandiosity. It
marks the next step in the developmental line of
the process of identication. The striving to
become like the admired object and enjoy the
gratication associated with it, is then made
possible by fantasies of merging. We call this the
stage of imitative identication, and it magically
endows the child and the self representation with
the desired aggrandized qualities associated with
the love object. There is an early passive form of
imitation based on early aective ties to the
mother, but it is soon replaced by a wish to gain
the sense of oneness with the object by means of
the child's own activity.
Imitation is an `às if'' form of identication
because the self representation is not changed in
any lasting way. In other words, imitation does
not build structure, but disappears as easily and
quickly as it arises. It is a form of play in which
disbelief is suspended, while the hold on reality is
retained. Imitating a favorite hero with all of his
or her grand and powerful abilities may be all
consuming for the child while it is going on, but it
will all fall away when his mother calls him to
lunch and he becomes a little child once more.
Imitating a hero satises a fantasy of merging
with the admired object, unlike the earlier
merging experiences which did not have an `às
if'' quality. The process leans heavily on magical
wishes, and it involves the total object not just a
single characteristic. Imitating Superman involves
becoming Superman in every respect. One could
say therefore that the characteristics of imitative
identication are that it is total, magical, transitory, and that it does not build structure.
The nal step in this developmental line is
the stage of select mature identication. This no
longer depends on gratication by, or closeness to
the admired object, but on the child's own
activity. It begins in the second year of life when
the ego has matured and become realistic enough
that mere magical likeness with the idolized object
in fantasy can no longer gratify the wish to be
perfect. The child's growing realistic awareness of
dierences, and the certain knowledge that
admired qualities of the idolized object are not
yet his own, interfere with the gratication that
had earlier come from magical fusion. The child is
now more realistic about the object, and more
importantly, about himself and his limitations.
One result of this gain in reality sense and the
realization of his smallness and weakness, is a
profound loss of self-esteem with a pervasive
depressive mood characteristic of this level of
development. The child's attempts to become
more like his admired idol from this point on have

to rely on realistic achievement rather than the
fantasied likeness of imitative identication. He
focusses on selected abilities and strengths he
admires in his important objects, and with his
newly won ability to distinguish self from object
attributes, begins the process of selective identication in order to eect a deep seated lasting
modication of the self and self representation,
striving to become more like the admired idol in
reality.
But rst a new aspect of the self representation has to form, a mental image or representation
of what the child would like to become. It requires
the formation of a new ego substructure alongside
the self representation that deals with ambitions
and the future, and which I will label the wishedfor self image (Milrod, 1982). Its contents are a
collection of all the desired talents, strengths,
abilities, etc. the child attributes to admired idols,
which he is painfully aware he does not yet
possess, but which he would very much like to
acquire. Just as the child strove to be `òne with''
an admired object representation in imitative
identication, he now strives to become `òne
with'' admired qualities in the wished-for self
image.
The Wished-for Self Image
The concept of the wished-for self image has been
around in the psychoanalytic literature since the
mid fties, but it has still not captured the
attention it deserves. Jacobson (1954, 1964)
introduced the concept, clearly distinguishing it
from the self representation on the one hand, and
the ego ideal (which appears later with the
formation of the superego) on the other. Hartmann
and Loewenstein (1962) and later Loewenstein
(1966) emphasized the importance of distinguishing between the wishful concept of the self, the
self representation, and the ego ideal. But they did
not suggest a name for this concept. Sandler et al.
(1963) referred to the same concept labelling it the
`ìdeal ego'' or `ìdeal self''. The importance of the
concept thus has been underscored by several
authors, although none has chosen to elaborate
on it.
In my opinion, as a technical term, the
``wished-for self image'' has advantages over
`ìdeal ego'' or `ìdeal self'', not only because it
practically denes itself, but also because it avoids
the word `ìdeal'' in an area of theory that deals
with ideal objects, idealization processes, ideal
values, the ego ideal, and thus avoids unnecessary
confusion. It also helps to distinguish characteristics that are personied (as they are in the
15
wished-for self image) from those that are

depersonied, idols from ideals, a distinction that
will become important later when the superego
forms. As a term it may lack elegance, but it
leaves no doubt that it refers to the kind of person
the individual wants to become. When formed, it
is a relatively stable substructure in the ego made
up of all the admired attributes associated with
important others that the individual recognizes he
does not yet possess. It cannot form before
relatively stable self-object dierentiation has
developed so that refusions of self and object
representations do not readily occur. Other ego
advances necessary for this step are in the ego's
self-observing function, its ability to tolerate
tension, the ability to tolerate the pain of selfcriticism, and the ability for objectivity, all
necessary to master the distress connected with
recognizing that one is not everything one would
like to be. Only then can desirable qualities
associated with important others be woven into
the new substructure.
The formation of the wished-for self image
marks a new stage in the development of the self
representation. In this new stage there is a
distinction established between what one is in
the present and has been in the past, as opposed
to what one aspires to become in the future. The
striving to gain realistic likeness to an idol
becomes charged with aggressive energy and nds
expression in competitive struggles with love
objects and rivals. At the same time, the admiration for those idolized objects and the wish to be
like them in some respect, also indicates that their
mental representations are invested with a great
deal of libidinal drive energy. Once formed in the
ego and set apart from the self representation
(Jacobson, 1964, p. 50f.), earlier magical gratications based on gaining control of the object by
merging give way to the solid pleasures the child
experiences when he succeeds in approximating
desirable qualities in the wished-for self image, in
reality. These pleasures are no longer based on
magic or fantasy. It follows that after the wishedfor self image forms, some of the magic of
childhood disappears.
The wished-for self image should not be
confused with the ``grandiose self'' or `ìdealized
self-object'' of Kohut (1971, 1977).6 The grandiose
6
Heinz Kohut, the founder of the ``Self Psychology'' school of
psychoanalysis, developed a dierent concept of the self from that
presented here. Originally he supported the view represented in this
paper, namely the Ego Psychology school of psychoanalysis, but
his ideas evolved to the point where the self representation was no
longer a substructure within the ego, but became a separate
superordinate structure alongside the id, ego, and superego, and
equal to, or perhaps more important than the ego. A new form of
16
fantasies that form the content of these concepts
must be signicantly curbed, and the individual
must become more reality bound before the
wished-for self image can be formed. Separationindividuation must have progressed considerably
beyond the regular merging of self and object
images which is still implicitly present in Kohut's
idealized self-objects. The child forming his
wished-for self image not only recognizes that
the attributes he admires in his idols are not yet
his own, but must be able to tolerate the
frustration and longing inherent in that situation,
and the envy involved.
The Self Representation and the Wished-for

Self Image
I shall rst point out some of the dierences
between these two substructures. The self representation begins its development much earlier and
its contents deal with the present and the past,
i.e., the present realistic image of the self, and
what that image has been in the past. The wishedfor self image deals with the future, what the
individual is striving to become. In our mental
image of ourselves we each have a sense of our
body, its physical and physiological strengths and
weaknesses; a sense of the intensity and nature of
our passions and drives, including their malleability or lack of it; a sense of our ability to
master powerful feelings, dicult situations, solve
problems, integrate conicting positions, and
sustain pressures; a sense of ourselves in the past
and in the present. Each of these form part of the
content of the self representation. The self
representation therefore contains images of the
body, the id, the ego, as well as the present and
the past. (It will also contain a sense of the
individual's moral ideals, which are related to the
superego, after the superego forms). The future,
however, is associated with the wished-for self
image, whose contents are made up of all the
valued qualities the individual admires in his
idols, and aspires to have for himself in the future.
These admired values follow the phase development of the drives. They are rst concerned with
gratication, then strength, power and possessions,
drive energy was employed, narcissistic energy, which Kohut

conceived of as separate and dierent from libidinal drive energy,
and which had its own line of development. Thus in narcissism, it is
not the self representation that is cathected with libidinal drive
energy, but the self that is cathected with narcissistic energy.
Structurally and economically his theory was a departure from the
mainstream of analytic thought. It would take us too far aeld to
discuss Kohut's interesting ideas in this paper.
David Milrod
and eventually phallic attributes. In addition the
contents of the wished-for self image are highly
personied as they are consciously identied with
specic admired persons. By denition it is an ego
substructure that is highly valued (libidinally
cathected), and the individual strives to ``become
one with'' its contents i.e., to make the self
representation approximate its desirable contents.
When the eorts succeed in this approximation
(and it need only be an incremental approximation), the individual's self esteem is enhanced. The
self representation will retain the acquired attribute from then on, more or less permanently.
That skill or ability becomes part of the self
representation and will form an element in the
person's sense of identity. In addition he will have
a sense of possessiveness about the newly won
ability, and feel, `Ìt is now mine.'' He will then
have formed an identication of the mature type.
In order to appreciate the signicance of the
characteristics of the wished-for self image
described above, we have to jump ahead in time
to the formation of the superego with its ego
ideal. As the superego forms, the values which
take on greatest signicance shifts from the earlier
oral, anal, and phallic values, to moral and ethical
values, and these make up the content of the ego
ideal. Their core elements are taboos against
incest and parricide. In general the directives of
the ego ideal are concerned with abstract moral
and ethical ideals which are not connected with
talents and skills of an admired idol, i.e., they are
depersonied. The individual strives to approximate these values and his self esteem will be
enhanced when he succeeds and lowered when he
fails. In addition, identications are never formed
with the contents of the ego ideal as they are with
the contents of the wished-for self image. Instead
they remain ideals always beyond us, and ever to
be striven for. The dynamic activity involving the
wished-for self image is self involved, i.e., its focus
is the strengthening of the self representation. The
dynamic activity involving the ego ideal is object
related as it directs the individual to behave
ethically toward others (Milrod, 1990).
Whereas the dynamic interaction in imitative
identication is between the self representation
and the object representation, in select mature
identication the focus changes to a dynamic
interaction between the self representation and
the wished-for self image. Mature, select identication only occurs after the formation of the
wished-for self image, at which time the wish to
become one with the object representation shifts
to a wish to become one with the wished-for self
image. The magical fantasies that dominated
imitative identication give way to real work

aimed at acquiring real skills and abilities in order
to attain the values contained in the wished-for
self image. It can be impressive to see how much
dedication, practice, and focussed work can go
into a child's eorts to become more like his idol.
Magic gives way to work; fantasy gives way to
reality. We also nd that a new dimension of the
sense of time develops with the formation of the
wished-for self image. Earlier the child had a
sense of the present and the past. He now
becomes aware of the future as well, and will be
able to tolerate longer periods of frustration as he
waits for future satisfaction, all the while sustained by a sense of hope that he will succeed in
becoming more like his idol. This new realistic
form of gratication underscores the fact that the
formation of the wished-for self image is the most
important developmental achievement aimed at
rescuing the child from the low self esteem and
depressive mood that regularly accompanies the
realization that his grandiose omnipotent fantasies are mere fantasies. It represents a rescue
operation for the child's injured narcissism that
gives the child an image of what he might become,
and with it a sense of hope.
In summary, the earliest form of identication is merging, which occurs when dierentiation
has barely begun, and elements belonging to the
self and object representations are blurred and
confused with one another. When dierentiation
has progressed and self and object representations
are much more distinct, it is followed by a form of
identication based on a fantasy of merging
which we refer to as imitation. It is characterized
by a total identication, by a fantasy of magical
transformation, and by the fact that it is
transitory. It does not alter the contents of the
self representation in any lasting way, i.e., it does
not build structure. The nal form of mature
select identication is reached after the formation
of the wished-for self image. These identications
are based on realistic achievement and are
selective, not total. They do build structure into
the self representation and are therefore lasting.
The child who has been practicing hard to
become more like his sports idol, for example,
and who has nally achieved a modicum of
mastery of the skill, feels he has become dierent
in an ongoing way.
In pondering the distinctions between the self
representation and the wished-for self image, I
have wondered whether it would ever be possible
for neuroscientists to delineate neural pathways
or patterns related to the wished-for self image
that could demonstrate a subtle dierence from
those connected with the self representation. For
example, can we create a neuroimaging format in
17
which the subject (e.g., a college student) is asked

to think about his or her ambitions and hopes for
the future, and contrast these images with those
captured when the subject is asked to think of
what he or she has accomplished up to the present
time? Is this a level of subtlety beyond what we
can expect of neuroscience?
The Sense of Identity
The sense of identity in psychoanalysis refers to a
sense of sameness about oneself that continues
over long stretches of time, which is sustained
even in the face of real changes that are taking
place. Thus, in spite of all the physical, intellectual, and emotional changes that occur between
the ages of 10 and 20, an individual still retains a
sense of sameness about who and what they are as
a person throughout that period. Continuity and
sameness are the hallmarks of a sense of identity.
We have seen that with maturation, the child
gives up magical fantasied oneness with admired
objects, in favor of working to become more
realistically like his idol in some specic way.
Once that developmental step is achieved, a step
marking a new stage in the development of the
self representation, the child can distinguish what
he or she is now and has been in the past, from
what he or she would like to become in the future.
The self representation points to what is realistic
now and was in the past; the wished-for self image
points future longed for changes. The two are
interlinked and foster a feeling of continuity and
sameness in the face of change through their
interplay and the interaction between past,
present, and future. It presupposes that object
and self constancy has been established so that
there can be a lasting cathexis of each. As far as
identication processes are concerned, early
magical fantasies of imitative identication cannot support the sense of identity because they do
not provide a sustained structured sense of self.
The opposite of the sustained sense of
sameness in identity formation, is illustrated by
the `às if'' character described by Helena Deutsch
(1934).
These are people who cannot form lasting
identications and instead take on qualities of
whomsoever they are with, in an imitative way.
Their demeanor, appearance, accent, interests,
etc. can change as they shift from one relationship to another. We could say that they display
constant change in the face of sameness. Their
pseudo-identity changes repeatedly as they confront the sameness of their inability to form
lasting identications of the select mature type.
18
David Milrod
They are people who remain arrested at the stage

of imitation. They were never able to form a
stable wished-for self image.
Both libidinal and aggressive drive energies

are important in promoting a sense of identity.
The foundations are set down in a warm and
caring parental experience. A good parent-child
relationship helps build the child's ego by
stimulating growth, supporting controls and
inhibitions of excessive passions, helping to direct
sexual and aggressive drives into acceptable
pathways, and supporting secondary process
functioning.7 Such a climate promotes the maturation of feeling, thought, and action, and leads to
aim-inhibited personal and social relationships,
and solid identications. Nonetheless, parental
frustrations, prohibitions, and demands can also
contribute to the independent functioning of the
ego. Some emphasis on frustration can produce
strong ambivalence that may turn aggression on
the object representation and libido onto the self
representation, with the resulting image of the
good self and the bad object. This can promote
greater dierentiation and independence. As with
so many developmental concerns, the question of
degree is of greatest importance here because
excessive gratication and excessive frustration
alike may have serious regressive and destructive
eects on the maturing ego. So, for example, the
mother's identication with the child is absolutely
necessary for her to gain an empathic understanding of what the child experiences. If the
identication is not limited, transitory, and
respectful of the child's dierences however, she
may unwittingly foster some arrest in the developing preoedipal ego of the child.
At about the age of 3 months, the child
becomes aware that there is a ``non-I'' part of his
world, and with it becomes aware of a rudimentary sense of self. By the end of the rst year of life
the child is possessive of the mother and shows
growing rivalry with the father and siblings, which
aids in the process of dierentiation. Between 2
and 2, with the ability to walk and talk, and
equipped with a sounder sense of perception and
of reality, the child makes the discovery of his
separateness, accompanied by the feeling, `Ì am
I.'' The aggressive drive plays an important role in
7
The earliest form of mental functioning is referred to as
primary process functioning, which is characterized by the pressure
for immediate discharge and gratication of internal tensions
regardless of the demands of reality. With maturation it is replaced
by secondary process functioning, which is characterized by the
delay of discharge and gratication in deference to the demands of
reality. With this postponement, logical thought and assessment of
reality can intervene. One result is an increase in inner tension
which the more advanced ego is now able to tolerate.
these developments. Thus we could conclude that

the libidinal investment in the early mother-child
relationship forms the matrix of identity formation, and that the aggressively invested relationship with rivals further promotes it.
Earlier we explored how lasting emotional
investment in self and object representations can
only occur after the stage of object and self
constancy. But it is more dicult forming a
lasting investment in a rival (e.g., the parent of the
same sex) because ambivalence is so much more
intense in those relationships. It is only when the
libidinal cathexis of the rival surpasses the
aggressive investment that the representation of
the rival can reach object constancy. Similarly,
self constancy implies the prevalence of libidinal
over aggressive cathexis of the self representation.
This is decisive in establishing the sense of
identity, and is another illustration of the
importance of libidinal forces in the process.
Having acquired a sense of identity does not
mean that it will remain stable thereafter.
Disturbing emotional forces may cause a regression that in eect undoes the progress that led to
the sense of identity. A clinical phenomenon that
illustrates the importance of identity, can be seen
in severely regressive states that can occur in some
psychoses or borderline conditions, where the ego
is ooded with aggressive drive derivatives and
the self representation begins to lose its integrity
and to fragment. Such a patient may speak of not
being able to hold on to himself, or may talk to
himself, saying repeatedly, ``Don't let yourself
go,'' or express the dread that he will ``dissolve''
or ``vanish'' or ``be lost in a crowd and never
found again.'' These experiences are typically
accompanied not by anxiety but by panic, the
equivalent subjectively of psychic death. These
patients are dealing on one level with the threat of
the loss of identity.
At the start of the oedipal phase identity gets
a strong impetus from the child's growing interest
in his own genitals and those of others. Somewhat
earlier, the discovery of the sexual dierence
contributed to this component of the child's
personal sense of identity. Castration anxiety
interferes with an objective view of the female
genital, as both boys and girls conclude that it
represents a damaged, castrated genital. For the
girl it means that this trauma has already
occurred, and it leads her to displace interest
from her ``defective'' genital to her pretty body,
face, and appearance in general. But girls are no
more prone to identity problems than are boys,
because sexual identity extends beyond the genital
to other body parts, general activities, and
interests, about which boys and girls dier. In

eect the sense of sexual identity expands to
include the whole bodily and mental person. In
addition successful identity formation is not
dependent on the heterosexual position, but on
enduring mature select identications that add to
the autonomy of the ego. Only these contribute to
a feeling of a coherent self and thus to identity
formation. Primitive identications depending on
wishes,feelings, and fantasies, cannot accomplish
this stabilizing task.
Once sexual identity is established, the child
focuses his identications on the parent of the
same sex and wishes to become part of the male
or female group. Consequently, as the heterosexual drive takes hold, wishes and fantasies help
to induce identications with the oedipal rival,
with whom there had been so much jealousy and
competition. The shift from competition to
identication is facilitated by the fact that ego
identications bind aggression, so that the libidinal investment in the rival and the implicit
admiration of him come to the fore. In preparation for the oedipal struggle, sexual prohibitions
and castration anxiety also reinforce aectionate
attachments to the rival. Object and self representations are deeply aected by these changes.
Desexualized thought and feeling processes surpass sexual fantasies, and cathectic shifts occur
that stimulate sublimation and autonomous ego
activity. Part of the libido invested in the oedipal
love object is withdrawn, neutralized, and turned
in part to other objects and in part to the self
representation. The former promotes new object
relations and new interests, while the latter
(narcissistic libido) joins up with the libido withdrawn from the erogenous zones (also instigated
by the beginnings of the oedipal struggle) and is
invested in the self representation and executive
functions of the ego. Similarly, aggressive drive
energy is withdrawn from oedipal rivals, neutralized, and redeployed in part to new object
representations and in part to the self representation. Investment in new object representations
enhances new ego interests, which are essentially
object-directed pursuits. Investment in the self
representation gives rise to feelings of inferiority
and self criticism. Earlier in development, the child
may have blamed others for hurts and disappointments. He is able now to use more realistic
judgment, and where appropriate, blame himself.
Identication processes change the self representation by magical or realistic means. In the
case of select mature identication, the change in
the self representation does not take place without
related changes occurring in the ego and its
functions. For example, the ego functions that
would be hypercathected would be strikingly
19
dierent if the striving to emulate admired

characteristics of an idol happened to concern
an athlete, a musician, a scientist, or a dancer.
The resulting changes in ego functions would
always involve libidinal, aggressive, and neutral
drive energy invested in the activity and in the self
and object representations. In addition our
exploration suggests that mature select identication is a conscious process as the child strives,
through practice and work, to achieve his
ambitious goals. This all belongs to the conscious
or preconscious mind, and I believe it is
important to stress this aspect of identication
because it runs counter to a widely held belief that
identication processes are always unconscious.
Unconscious identications do exist and play an
important role in life. A child who is depressed as
a result of an identication with a depressed
mother is not demonstrating an ambition to be
like the depressed mother, but more likely a
longing to be close to, and hold on to, a mother
not always emotionally present. The same can be
said about masochistic traits, phobic apprehensions, paranoid suspiciousness, etc. as well as
non-pathological phenomena such as social attitudes, mannerisms, and even style of speech and
accents. These are all forms of identication that
are generally unconscious. Very often an identication with a lost love object is unconscious. For
example a patient whose analyst has died, may
take on one of his analyst's mannerisms, a
circumstance he may be totally unaware of, while
many around him may easily recognize it.
Paradoxically, unconscious identications
can appear in individuals who have consciously
resolved not to be at all like a parent with whom
they have a strong ambivalent tie. For example,
such an individual who has felt essentially
deprived emotionally during childhood might
develop a constant pursuit of personal gratication at all costs in order to compensate for their
deprivation. In the process, the individual may be
unaware that he behaves toward his partner much
like the parent behaved toward him in his
developmental years: indierent, remote, and
depriving. These unconscious forms of identication usually form part of the individual's character structure, noted more by others than by
themselves. Conscious identications which focus
on ambitious aims, including one's life's work,
generally form part of the individual's identity,
and ll out the sense of who and what one is as a
person.
To continue along the line of development of
the ego which we have been following, would take
us into the subject of the formation of the
superego. The superego is extremely important
20
in its inuence on the self and object representations, and it is a topic I have only briey touched
on in this paper. But to fully explore its
formation, structure, and dynamic action, would
take us beyond the scope of our main subject.
For the benet of the psychoanalytic reader
who might not be familiar with the neuroscientists' view of ``the self'', I would like to attempt a
summary review of some of the ideas that rst
aroused my interest in the work of Jaak Panksepp
and Antonio Damasio, the two neuroscientists
with whose work I am most familiar. It may be
that I am omitting signicant contributors, and if
so it is merely a function of my limitations in a
eld that is new to me. These authors approach
the problem from very dierent points of view,
Panksepp as a researcher investigating aect in
animals and who extrapolates from his ndings to
man, while Damasio addresses the problem as a
clinical and experimental neurologist working
directly with humans. Yet despite these signicant
dierences in approach it is striking to see the
wide areas of similarity in their conclusions. This
summary is undertaken with the realization that I
cannot possibly do justice to the richness and
elegance of the authors' presentations.
Jaak Panksepp
In his book, Aective Neuroscience (1998), after
the author explores at some length the primal
emotions governed by the animal brain, he turns
to the nature of consciousness and the self. Since
animals do have feelings, he concludes that we
cannot understand their brains or ours without
confronting ``that undenable attribute of mind
that we commonly call our sense of self . . .''
(p. 300). He goes on to bind consciousness and
the self closer together in his work, and suggests
that a neural principle of self representation
emerges early in brain evolution, rooted rst in
ancient midbrain regions where early motor maps
(body schema), sensory maps (world schema),
and emotional maps (value schema) rst intermixed. In time, with evolutionary progress, a
multidimensional conscious sense of self came to
be greatly expanded. Parallel to Freud's belief,
Panksepp emphasizes that man's values descend
by genetic heritage from our ancestral past. Each
individual's life is constructed in the here and
now, but values are encoded in an ancient
aective consciousness, an aective consciousness
which on the one hand is based on motor
processes and body image representations, and
on the other, generates consciousness of self.
In mammalian evolution basic emotional
David Milrod
systems emerged whose neural circuits coordinated behavior patterns that aided survival. These
patterns are: to approach when seeking, to escape
when frightened, to attack when enraged, to seek
nurture and support when experiencing panic, etc.
Consciousness is deeply enmeshed with brain
mechanisms promoting action readiness, and the
self is of central importance in understanding the
basic aective states of consciousness. Panksepp
says that the self may be the foundation for all
other forms of consciousness, e.g., higher forms
that enable us to be self-reective and to be
conscious of being conscious. The self, in addition, has a profound sense of unity, not even
disturbed by damage to higher parts of the brain
that result in the loss of specic abilities (e.g.,
speech and/or movement). Even in such cases the
sense of self continues uninterrupted. The foundation of our ``core of being'' must therefore lie
deeper in the brain, perhaps in the ancient circuits
of the brainstem which are essential for consciousness, and therefore may be associated with
a neurosymbolic aective representation of the
self. Panksepp sees that `ìneable feeling of
experiencing oneself as an active agent in the
perceived events of the world'' as linked to low
level brain circuits that rst represented the body
as a coherent whole. Stimuli from internal and
external sources interact with body schema giving
rise to new aerent reverberations, and producing
the potential for internal aective awareness.
The archaic self rst arises from organized
motor processes in the midbrain, and its rhythms
are aected by a wide range of inputs as it
interacts with sensory and emotional systems
which themselves get direct input from the outer
world. These inputs modify the intrinsic neurodynamics of the self representation, and these
modications generate subjective emotional feelings. The self is therefore an ancient neural
process for the generation of spontaneous emotional actions that are observed by recently
evolved brain monitors or sensory perceptual
processors. They provide a self referencing
mechanism in which deviations from a resting
state become represented as states of action
readiness and/or aective feelings.
To Panksepp all of this suggests that the
brain substrate of the self (and hence consciousness) must be ancient in brain evolution and
therefore situated near the core of the brain. Since
it must be richly connected to the rest of the brain
and allow for representations at many levels
during development, he concludes that the most
likely anatomical source lies in the centromedial
zones of the midbrain including the deep layers of
the colliculi and the periventricular gray.
Antonio Damasio
Damasio in his book The Feeling of What
Happens (1999) spells out more specically how
the self arises. To him, the self is an indispensable
part of the conscious mind. In wondering how
that entity we call feelings becomes known to the
feeling organism, he concludes that the sense of
self is necessary to make the signals that constitute
feelings of emotion, known to the organism
having the emotion. In studying consciousness,
we must understand how the brain creates the
mental patterns we call the images of an object,
and in addition, how it engenders at the same time
the sense of self in the act of knowing: knowing
that it is you knowing the object, that you are the
owner of the images, that you are the presence in
the relationship with the object. Your presence is
the feeling of what happens when your being is
modied by the act of apprehending something.
That presence never leaves from the time of
awakening to the time of sleep. Thus consciousness brings together the object and the self.
Simple ``core consciousness'' provides a
sense of self about the here and now. More
complex `èxtended consciousness'' provides an
elaborate sense of self, an identity, and it places
the individual at a point in historical time with a
past and an anticipated future. Diseases that
disrupt extended consciousness allow core consciousness to remain intact. Diseases that impair
core consciousness demolish all consciousness.
Parallel to the dierent forms of consciousness
there are dierent forms of the self, the core self
and the autobiographical self. The core self is
transient and recreated for each object. When it
becomes more lasting and approaches a sense of
identity, it becomes the autobiographical self.
Before a feeling is known, core consciousness
must be brought to bear on it, and only then can
we feel a feeling. Core consciousness results in the
sense of self; it is the sense of our organism in the
act of knowing, and it includes an inner sense that
there is an individual subject who has knowledge
of the moment. Core consciousness is the knowledge achieved when you confront an object,
construct a neural pattern for it, and discover
that the image of the object belongs to you. The
essence of core consciousness is the thought of
you involved in the process of knowing your own
existence and the existence of others.
Damasio initially believed that the self was
related to the neural patterns representing the
body, which would account for its fundamental
characteristic, stability. He came to believe that
the original self was neither the core self nor the
autobiographical self, but what he called a
21
``proto-self'', a preconscious biological precedent

composed of a collection of neural patterns which
map the state of the physical structure of the
organism. It is not conscious; language is not part
of it; it has no powers of perception; it holds no
knowledge. It is the rst order of representation
of current body states and provides the roots for
the self, that ``something to which knowing is
attributed.''
As the brain forms images of the object,
images that aect the state of the organism,
another level of brain structure creates a nonverbal account of what is taking place in the
object-organism interaction. Mapping the objectrelated consequences takes place in a rst order
neural map. The account of the relationship
between object and organism can be captured
only on a second order neural map, as if it were
narrating the story of the organism caught in the
act of representing its own changing state as it
goes about representing something else. In the
process, the knowable entity of ``the catcher'' (the
subject) is created in the narrative of ``the
catching process''. All of these processes occur
whether the object is perceived, or recalled from
memory. There is a third order, namely the
immediate translation of the second order nonverbal narrative into words.
According to Damasio, several structures in
the brain can generate a second order neural
pattern representing rst order occurrences. They
could be accounted for by the interactions
between a select few regions such as the superior
colliculi, the cingulate cortex, the thalamus, and
some prefrontal cortices.
* *
Most psychoanalysts, I believe, will nd many

fascinating ideas in these contributions which are
likely to echo some of their own psychoanalytic
interests. I will touch on just a few that occurred
to me. Both Panksepp and Damasio describe or
imply that they inherently adopt a developmental
point of view in their thinking about the self, a
view with which analysts are very familiar. In his
description of the protoself, the core self, and
nally the autobiographical self for example,
Damasio utilizes exactly that developmental
position. Panksepp too speaks of the expansion
of the self with evolutionary progress, a statement
from which we can extrapolate an ontological
development as well. Similarly each author
stresses the importance of self/object dierentiation, another subject with which analysts are
constantly dealing. Panksepp draws distinctions
between the self, the object world, and values, as
though all three are equivalent, a position many
22
David Milrod
analysts might question, and he does so without

drawing distinctions between personal and moral
values, a distinction important to psychoanalysts.
For Damasio particularly, dierentiation of
the self from the object becomes intertwined with
consciousness. His description of the original or
protoself as a collection of neural patterns
mapping the physical or body state of the
organism calls to mind Freud's dictum that the
ego is rst and foremost a body ego. Panksepp
echoes this idea in his work. (I believe we might
usefully enlarge Freud's dictum today to include
the idea that the self representation is rst and
foremost a body representation. One consequence
of this would be an expansion of our concepts so
that, for example, Hoer's hand and mouth ego
(1949) could just as well be a reference to a hand
and mouth self representation).
For Panksepp the self does not have thoughts
or perceptions, a position analysts would agree
with; but he adds that it does have elaborate
primitive feelings. Psychoanalysts, I believe, would
more likely ascribe elaborate feelings to the ego
and its functions than to the self. His inclination
to view the self as an ancient neural process for the
generation of emotional actions raises similar
questions. Neuroscientists may not have a concept
that matches the analytic term `ègo'', but it
would be helpful were they to try to understand
what we as psychoanalysts take great pains to
dierentiate, i.e., the ego and the self.
One more overlapping concept is that of
representations. Panksepp particularly uses the
idea of representations of many entities, including
the self. It is a concept that is of great importance
to analysts. One of the most interesting ideas that
both authors underscore is a function that
psychoanalysts would refer to as the self-observing
function of the ego, which Panksepp and Damasio
see as a centrally important activity in the
creation and maintenance of the self.
* *
In conclusion, I believe that we may not yet be

ready for an integration of neuroscientic and
psychoanalytic points of view on the self. Yet a
comparison of the concepts of the self described
by these two dierent disciplines, reveals a
number of areas of agreement or overlapping
ideas. Neuroscientists have linked the self to
consciousness, as well as to the development of an
awareness of an object (Panksepp's motor and
sensory maps, and Damasio's description of the
impact of the image of an object on the
organism). The self and the object are thus closely
interlinked from their perspective. It is striking to
see how well this conforms with the psycho-
analytic view, particularly of the gradual dierentiation of the self from the object, and their
simultaneous and parallel development. The
psychoanalytic distinction between the self representation, (which holds an image of the self in the
present and the past), and the wished-for self
image, (which holds an image of the future with
the hope of achieving ambitions and goals),
echoes the neuroscientists' view that core consciousness provides a sense of self in the here and
now, while extended consciousness provides a
more elaborate sense of self at a point in historical
time, with a past and a future.
Psychoanalysts describe the self and object
representations developing gradually from transient, elemental, part images, to total and
constant substructures; neuroscientists describe
the core self as transient, but see it becoming in
time the autobiographical self as it becomes
lasting and approaches a sense of identity.
Damasio portrays the origin of the sense of self
at the moment when there is an awareness of
one's own organism in the act of knowing, which
results in the sense that there is an individual
subject with knowledge of the moment, and an
awareness of his or her own existence, as well as
the existence of the other. Psychoanalysts, I
believe, will admire this sensitive description of
what we try to portray using a dierent vocabulary, when describing the shift from the undierentiated phase of life, when there are no mental
representations, to the transitory beginnings of
self/object dierentiation. Both views emphasize,
explicitly and implicitly, self observation and self
perception in the ``knowing''. The language used
is very dierent and may involve second order
neural patterns forming representations of rst
order occurrences (Damasio), or recently evolved
brain monitors and sensory perceptual processors
observing emotional actions (Panksepp), or language dealing with the ego and its self observing
function, but they all stress the importance of self
perception. (I believe that psychoanalysts might
gain a great deal in emphasizing the links between
self observation and consciousness, and the sense
of self and consciousness). Both neuroscientists
and psychoanalysts emphasize that the earliest
form of (proto)self is closely related to the
individual's physical structure and to body states.
Neuroscientists place the self near the ancient
core of the brain, which agrees with the view that
the newborn's rst transient awareness of the self
and non-self occurs very early in life.
There are, however, basic dierences between
these two conceptions of the self. Neuroscientists
strive to explain fundamental phenomena such as
perception, consciousness, emotion, memory, etc.

including the subtleties of their integration, and in
this way build up an understanding of the basic
functioning of the organism. In recent years they
have included a study of the self as it integrates
with consciousness, emotion, and an awareness of
the object. They try to discover general truths,
and often use phylogenetic concepts in arriving at
an understanding of what a particular concept
(e.g., the self) is, what it interrelates with, what it
inuences, and is inuenced by. In short, they
concern themselves with the universal and objective. Psychoanalysis, which has historically focused
on the individual and has been more interested in
ontology, has as its goal the understanding of
protracted intrapsychic, interpersonal, and subjective functioning of the individual. It was in
order to better understand that functioning that
psychoanalysts had to deal with the self and its
representation. In dealing with the self, the
psychoanalyst is more likely to focus on the
contents of the self and its representation, the
state of stability or fragility it may possess, and
under what circumstances these characteristics
shift back and forth in the course of treatment. In
other words, they focus on those elements that
make each individual dierent from one another.
In part this is related to the fact that psychoanalysts are engaged in a treatment process aimed
at producing therapeutic change in a specic
individual.
Neuroscience and psychoanalysis, seemingly
at opposite ends of the psychiatric spectrum,
appear to be coming closer to one another's views
in a number of concepts each espouses, as they
explore the nature of the self and its functioning.
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Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

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David Milrod, M.D.

As a psychoanalyst with a strong interest in

regularity, and predictability. Thus the ``superego'',3 or what we refer to as conscience in

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

understanding of secondary narcissism without

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

which are withdrawn again after the needs have

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

Dynamic Interaction Between Self and Object

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

wished-for self image) from those that are

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The Self Representation and the Wished-for

drive energy was employed, narcissistic energy, which Kohut

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

which the subject (e.g., a college student) is asked

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They are people who remain arrested at the stage

Both libidinal and aggressive drive energies

these developments. Thus we could conclude that

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

dierent if the striving to emulate admired

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

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``proto-self'', a preconscious biological precedent

Most psychoanalysts, I believe, will nd many

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analysts might question, and he does so without

In conclusion, I believe that we may not yet be

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The Concept of the Self and the Self Representation

(1917), Mourning and Melancholia. S.E., 14:

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